The Day 'Will The Real Slim Ninie, Please (Head?)stand Up!'

Dear Diary,

Last Friday evening, on the way to Be Yoga,
I stopped by Atilia's table at a mamak place around the corner for a quick drink, when..

. . . . . . .

a guy from a table across, walked to our table.

I whispered to Atilia, "Babe, mesti your fan ni!"

To my surprise, he introduced himself to us, shook our hands and asked ME,
"You are Ninie, the yoga instructor right?"

I answered, Yes.. lah kan.

When he continued, "Oh hi, I am your one of your MySpace friends!"

Errrrr, but I don't have MySpace!

"But YOU have been replying to my messages!"

BUT I DO NOT HAVE MYSPACE!


Dengan sepantas kilat, Atilia berri-ed myspace.com/ninieahmad and found, surprise surprise..




















Imagine my terror when I discovered the profile.
Of course that's my picture, my profile, my photos but I did not set that up!
They were copied bluntly from my Facebook!

I DO NOT OWN ANY MYSPACE OR FRIENDSTER ACCOUNTS!

This 'Ninie Ahmad' had painstakingly copied and pasted almost all of my albums
and most of my pictures in those albums to MySpace!
















I can't say I am not flattered.
Someone actually thinks I am worth their time to be doing this for me!
And I am not even a celebrity!


Well, if you know me well enough, you would know that,

For one,
I wouldn't be caught dead with anything pink in my room, my office desk
(no offense pink lovers, I'm just not blessed with the liking for pink coloured things, chic-lit books and Stila / BeneFit packagings)
let alone on my profile background!

Secondly,
Not in my right mind I would have the time and would want to be seen with profile name (love symbol) Ninie (love symbol).
Sorry, Googled for the html code for that heart symbol thing tetapi tiada berjumpa!

AND,
I would never write 'adidas' as Adidas without small-capitalizing the initial 'a'.
All of you shouldn't too. adidas is registered and trademarked with all small letters.
(Jessica Lim and Darren Choy, don't you just love me?)


The closer I took a look at that profile and all the comments left to the pictures,
all the more I can't imagine what this 'Ninie Ahmad' has been writing / replying
to 'my' friends and my friend-wannabes!
































Giler mengorat secara rempit lagi terburuk kan?

I immediately lodged an official complaint letter to MySpace and they responded with a solution
on how to verify 'who is the real Ninie Ahmad' by following a few steps:

• They need to receive a 'salute' from the owner of the MySpace profile or from the party in question (a salute is a digital image or picture of you holding a handwritten sign that contains information about your MySpace account).
  

• They will then determine if the 'Ninie Ahmad' in the salute is the owner of the account / profile by comparing the salute with the pictures uploaded in the reported profile's photos.

While they take their time in determining the verdict,
whoever's in 'my' MySpace, kindly delete yourself out!
If 'I' have been asking for money or sexual favours, it wasn't me!

And seriously, who still MySpaces?


While I am at it,
I do not approve Facebook's Friend Request from anyone I have never met had conversations with in real life
(although some exceptions go to veryyyyyyyyy special bloggers / my blog readers that have special places in my spine)
and please do understand that I can't afford to approve everyone that has been to my yoga classes / read my blog!

Anyway, I have also disabled my Facebook's Add Friend Request since last year
since I have more Friend Requests than my own Friends List. What the?












There is not much in my Facebook that I don't share here
so tak payah lahhhhh add me.

Dan tak payahlah susah payahhhhhhhhhhhhhh create another profile of me!


Kalau nakkkkkkkk jugak buat Ninie perasan celebrity,
followlah Ninie di

http://twitter.com/ninieahmad

If I am that worthy.

The Day It Doesn't Take A Design / Graphic / Mass Comm Degree to BE Creative

Dear Diary,












When strong and 'dengan konfidennya' accusations like one of this pops out,

Xylena said...

Dear Ninie,
All these while I always wondered how you could be so smart in coming up with the concept of 'BeYoga' especially in all the clever taglines and copywriting when you are not a marketing nor an advertising person.

Tonight, and watching the latest episode of Ugly Betty on 8TV (right now, 7 April 2009), I realised that you have copied the concept of 'Be(something)' from this series of Betty presenting her 'BeMagazine' idea! ohmygod... how could you think that people, Malaysians, especially, would not notice this?

What have you got to say about this? Or I am very sure that you will not publish my comment.

10:04 PM, April 07, 2009

I have nothing else to say except:

• I have never watched ANY episode of Ugly Betty my entire life
  

• and that Be Yoga concept, tagline and brand development were planned and put to papers in design back in October 2008 lagi. Not today or on 7 April 2009. Aiyooo. So wild lah your imagination, creative sungguh (macam I ;D)!
  

I'd like to take that 'clever taglines and copywriting when you are not a marketing nor an advertising person' as a compliment though ;)

I might not have a marketing degree nor with with ad firms
but haven't I been self-taglining / copywriting everything here for the past five years
and published two yoga magazines on my own?


P.S. Bebudak STF yang selalu menyaksikan atau dapat 'surat cinta @ message' daripada Ninie mesti baca entri ni sambil ketawa dan berkata, "You tak tau ke, Ninie dari sekolah lagi memang kaki tulis slogan / buat design / conteng dinding (?) camgini?".

Oh yes, you should've seen my Folio Kemahiran Hidup / Geografi for PMR, babe!

The Day It Doesn't Get More Unbelievable Than This!

Dear All,

Go ahead and compare Be Yoga's price package with your gyms or yoga centres
but I am saying go ahead too if you wish to compare the quality of our classes and our teachers.

As you can see, the *Early-Bird price for 12-months UNLIMITED membership at Be Yoga
is almost RM500 off the normal 12-months price (*if you sign-up before 15 APRIL 2009).

However,
if you drop by our sales booth TODAY anytime from 1noon to 6pm,
our Early-Bird price for 12-months UNLIMITED membership is selling for RM100 for the first 100 customers only!




TODAY ONLY.




RM100 for UNLIMITED access to
8 yoga classes a day
= 50 yoga classes a week
= 200 yoga classes a month
= 2400 yoga classes a year
including Hot Yoga and Pilates classes
conducted by Malaysia's best yoga teachers
at Damansara Perdana's most visible building?


FOR REAL?

Heh, you wish sayangku.
You wish.


























April 1st and Ninie can be quite if not really cruel sometimes.
Kan?

The Day 'Yoga Teaches Us To Cure What Need Not Be Endured and Endure What Cannot Be Cured' ~ BKS Iyengar

Dear Diary,

















Ninie by Joe Low



It has been six weeks and
that something that does not belong to my body
is still in me.

My daily struggle of motivating others to fight their own worst enemy
in between of keeping a Zen face while battling my own misery
is emotionally draining me.

I tried looking at it as food allergy in it's first few weeks
but when it still makes it's presence even when I go fully vegetable and fruits all day,
I know it is a way, if not the only way my body has been trying to tell me something.

Last Sunday night over carefully picked dinner to sideline potential allergens,
two of my fellow and beloved yoga teachers took one close look to diagnose my condition
and immediately distinguished in terror, "Girl, that is mainly caused by STRESS!"

Wow.

Even Wikipedia lists 'the cause is often difficult to identify', 'majority of patients have an unknown (idiopathic) cause' among others and the best my doctor could come out with was, telling me that 'my (anti)body is attacking protein.'

I used to think that the word 'stress' is overrated,
taking for granted that that one word is the major contributor to neckpain and stiffback
most people complain about and turn to yoga to.


















When I first heard it from my yoga doctors, I went, C'MON!
I am a yoga instructor, how in the world can I be stressed
when I teach and make a living out of forcing people to exhale their stress out!

I preach to my yoga students that
our body is a walking billboard for our state of mind.
I have to eat my words.

Maybe I only make believe that I am fine
but evidently, what I am going through might have been too much
for my body to bear and for my organs to swallow.


S t r e s s.


A stressed yoga teacher
is pretty much like a dentist with bad teeth.























As much as I wish I could simply exhale it out,
meditate my way to propel it out of my system,
there are just some problems that can solely be solved
if say, RM200,000 falls from my sky, you get what I mean?

The Day 'They'll kick you, then they beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair, so BEAT IT, but you wanna be bad'

Dear Diary,

Alhamdulillah,
I am capable of laughing
at pretty much everything again now.

Any news I read,
any fact I refuse to believe,
all the comments I approved
all jokes anyone throws

especially last night,
as Supertall, his Superhairy friend and I were having dinner
when Superhairy mentioned, "I read Michael Jackson's a Muslim now."

To which Supertall replied,

ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wait!
It was soooo funny I thought it's worth my time
googling for something totally unrelated
just so that I can share with you
Supertall's reply in a postcard Postsecret style,






















And it rhymed!

The Day I Might Be Banned Next For Putting This Up

Dear Diary,

I had a good laugh today reading this forwarded e-mail.

I gotta remind you, it's not funny, funny.
But more of stupid 'takde-kerja-lain-ke' funny.

Read, if you must.
Laugh, if you can.
But please, thinking hats off and LIGHTEN UP!

You are not the one
who's on the brink of losing career / endorsements
and whose investors are getting cold feet.

( DISCLAIMER: I was not the one who wrote and forwarded this )

KENYATAAN AKHBAR
MAJLIS XXXXX KEBANGSAAN

Mulai 1 Januari 2009, orang beragama Islam di Malaysia dilarang menggunakan Bahasa Melayu. Ini adalah kerana banyak perkataan di dalam bahasa Melayu berasal dari bahasa Sanskrit. Hasil kajian Majlis Xxxxx Kebangsaan mendapati 37% dari perkataan-perkataan di dalam bahasa Melayu berasal dari Sanskrit. Seperti yang tuan-tuan dan puan-puan sedia maklum, Sanskrit merupakan bahasa asal agama Hindu. Ia juga di kenali di masa yang lampau sebagai "the language of the gods".

Oleh yang demikian, Majlis Xxxxx Kebangsaan berpendapat jika bahasa Melayu digunakan di dalam percakapan harian, kemungkinan besar aqidah orang Islam akan terjejas dan menyebabkan mereka menyeleweng dari ajaran Islam yang sebenar.

Oleh yang demikian, Majlis Xxxxx Kebangsaan dengan ini, secara rasminya, mengharamkan orang Islam di Malaysia dari menggunakan bahasa Melayu mulai 1 Januari 2009. Dengan terlaksananya xxxxx ini, maka :

• Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka akan dibubarkan serta-merta
• Stesen-stesen TV and radio tidak lagi akan menyiarkan berita dalam bahasa Melayu
• Permit surat khabar berbahasa Melayu akan ditarik balik oleh Kementerian Dalam Negeri
• Orang islam di Malaysia digalakkan mempelajari bahasa-bahasa lain seperti bahasa Arab, bahasa Inggeris, bahasa Mandarin dan bahasa Tamil.

Xxxxx ini merupakan xxxxx yang terakhir menggunakan bahasa Melayu. Selepas hari ini, semua fatwa yang akan dikeluarkan oleh Majlis Xxxxx Kebangsaan akan menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris, Mandarin and Tamil.

Majlis Xxxxx Kebangsaan
Kuala Lumpur, 24 November 2008


Exactly the 'SERIOUSLY?' funny I felt when I read
a panel of Kajian Akidah Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) said
"Amalan konsep bersenam biasa ialah mengeluarkan peluh tetapi tidak berlaku dalam yoga. Saya sendiri pernah mengamalkan yoga lebih 30 tahun lalu semasa di Amerika Syarikat (AS) dan mampu melakukan senaman teratai, tetapi mula meninggalkannya apabila mendapati yoga bercanggah dengan amalan Islam."

LEBIH TIGA PULUH TAHUN LALU, wahhhhhhh!
Mampu melakukan senaman teratai (half lotus exercise), whhhhhhhoaahhh!

Can I see more hands raised of
siapa lagi tak berpeluh langsung dalam kelas yoga
alaf ke-21 ni?

Unless you were in Half Lotus position for the whole one hour,
kindly simpan tangan dalam poket sebelum aku dan Azmi
lipat-lipat kau jadik Full Lotus dalam posisi Headstand.


If you see this post disappears after a couple of hours,
or if I go MIA without new posts for a couple of weeks,
no prize in guessing where I'll be.

The Day All Can't Be Fooled At The Same Time

From The Star, Tuesday 25 November 2008

Yoga fatwa on hold

PETALING JAYA: The implementation of the fatwa (edict) banning the practice of yoga by Muslims has been put on hold in two states.

• The Sultan of Selangor said the fatwa could not be implemented in the state yet as it had not been presented to the state Fatwa Committee,

• Perak Islamic Religious Department director Datuk Jamry Sury withdrew his earlier statement that Perak would adopt the fatwa, saying that several procedures including seeking the consent of the Sultan, had to be carried out first,

• Perlis Mufti Dr Asri Zainal Abidin spoke out against the edict, saying yoga with the non-Muslim elements removed should be allowed,

• Most other states said they would take the necessary steps to enable the edict to be implemented,

• However, Sisters in Islam said the fact that the states had differing views on the matter seemed to suggest that there was no consensus on the ban.

Give alternative version of yoga, says Perlis Mufti
By ZIEMAN

KUALA LUMPUR: Perlis Mufti Dr Asri Zainul Abidin said the National Fatwa Council should have offered an alternative version of yoga instead of banning Muslims from practising the ancient form of exercise.

He pointed out that many other sports activities like tai chi, judo and taekwondo were picked up from other cultures.

“These sports did not have anything to do with Islam but have been practised because of its known health benefits,” he said in a telephone interview with Mstar yesterday.

“Yoga practitioners who are Muslims should be given an alternative by practising a version of yoga that does not resemble the version practised by other religions,” he said, adding that chanting while practising the exercise should also be stripped. He maintained that yoga was a good exercise to maintain a healthy lifestyle if done minus the extra bits that are against Islamic teachings.

Dr Asri is believed to have not attended the National Fatwa Council’s meeting on the edict on yoga because he felt uncomfortable with the discrimination by Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) and its director against his views on an alternative solution. “The fatwa (edict) announced in this day and age should not be too rigid. The human movement does not necessarily have a connection with religion,” he said.


From Harian Metro, Monday 24 November 2008

The Day The Game Is Not Over

From TheStar.tv, Sunday 23 November 2008




From The Star, Sunday 23 November 2008

Fatwa Council says yoga with worshipping, chanting is prohibited (updated)
By MAZWIN NIK ANIS

PUTRAJAYA: The National Fatwa council has declared that the yoga practice which involves three elements of physical movements, worshipping and chanting as haram (prohibited) in Islam.

Its chairman Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Husin said although merely doing the physical movements of yoga minus the worshipping and chanting might not be wrong in the eyes of the religion, it should be avoided as “doing one would lead to another”.

He said yoga has been practised by the Hindu community for thousands of years and incorporates physical and religious elements and chants and worshipping, with the aim at “being one with God”.

“Because of this, we believe that it is inappropriate for Muslims to do yoga and the council has declared that practising yoga when it comes all together with the three elements as haram.

“We discourage Muslims to do yoga as a form of exercise because it will ultimately lead to religious worshipping and chanting which is against Islam.

“In Islam, one must not do things which can erode one’s aqidah or faith. Doing yoga, even just the physical movements is a step towards an erosion of one’s faith in the religion, hence Muslims should avoid it,” he told a press conference.

He added that the council had come up with an edict on yoga as the matter was brought up to them following growing concerns whether it would be against the religion if Muslims do the exercise.

Recently, a lecturer Prof Zakaria Stapa of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Islamic Studies Centre advised Muslims who had taken up yoga to stop practising it for fear that they could deviate from the teachings of Islam.

Shukor said the declaration of yoga as haram was done after serious and indepth discussions were made by the council members who met last month.

He added after studying the matter, including the history and purpose of yoga where the ultimate aim was to “be one with God”, the council decided that it was inappropriate for Muslims as it could affect one’s faith.

Asked if the decision would draw flak within the Malaysian community, including the non-Muslims, he said the ruling was only meant for Muslims and the rest were free to practise yoga.

“The fatwa (edict) is meant solely for the Muslims to follow. The non-Muslims need not question or debate about this because they are free to do whatever they wish. It is the Muslims who have to adhere to this,” he added.

Shukor said once the edict was gazetted, it would be up to the state governments on how they plan to implement and enforce the ruling as religious affairs come under its purview.

“Malaysia is not the only country which declare yoga as haram in Islam. Singapore and Egypt have come out with the same edict as well,” he said.

He said Muslims must be careful as to not do things which could erode their faith, adding the religion strongly advocates “prevention is better than cure”.

“There are many other forms of exercise that Muslims can partake especially when the religion promotes healthy living and lifestyle. Performing prayers for example is a good form of exercise,” he said.


From NST, Sunday 23 November 2008

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Related videos


From TheStar.tv, Friday 7 November 2008


'Why yoga' by Max Strom from Yoga Conference Malaysia 2007's press conference

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Related articles

http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/2008/11/you-can-do-it-as-long-as-you-dont-move.html

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/12966-pas-pkr-and-ordinary-muslims-criticise-yoga-ruling